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[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"39808","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","alt":"Leonardo mummified dinosaur Children"}}]]Did you hear our big announcement about Leonardo, the mummified dinosaur? Mookie Harris is here to tell us more about what makes Leonardo SO special. Mookie is the Coordinator of the Dinosphere and Treasures of the Earth galleries; he's loved dinosaurs since he was three years old.
In March, Dinosphere will welcome its newest resident, a fossilized, mummified hadrosaur (Brachylophosaurus, to be specific) named Leonardo. You’ll be able to see his skin, his tendons, his muscles—even what he ate! How did a dinosaur become a dino-mummy? Glad you asked!
- First, there had to be living dinosaurs. And just like with wild animals today, most dinosaurs’ remains did not fossilize when they died—they simply decayed and were lost forever. Paleontologists estimate that only a tiny percentage of the dinosaurs that ever lived has been or will be found as fossils.
- When dinosaurs died, their carcasses were usually exposed to weather, scavengers, insects, bacteria and the like, but sometimes they would be naturally buried in sediment by things like sandstorms, mudslides, high tides or sinkholes and that sediment would harden into rock over time.
- If conditions were just right, mineral-heavy water would seep into the rock, and into the hollow spaces in the bones, and the bone materials would be replaced with rock-like minerals.
- And, if the chemicals and the moisture level and the pressure and other factors were perfect, over time, the bone would be replaced by a rock-like copy or natural cast called (drum roll, please) a fossil!
- NOW, go back to Step 2. Imagine that a dinosaur died on the banks of a shallow river in what is now Montana and that when its body was eventually buried, minerals in the river infiltrated the dinosaur's soft tissues, desiccating and preserving them, resulting in natural mummification. We now have a mummified, fossilized dinosaur! The rarest of the rare!
- Cut to modern day. Our fossil is now buried under layer upon layer of deposited sediment that hardened into rock over the ages. But erosion happened as well, and if we’re lucky, our fossil might end up exposed, thanks to wind and water.
- And if we’re super lucky, somebody might spot a bit of the exposed fossil jutting out of stratified rock.
- And if we’re ridiculously lucky, paleontologists will be able to dig it out without damaging it and get it back to a lab and prepare it for display in a museum.
- And if we’re astronomically, stupendously lucky, that museum would be The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
- Well, we are astronomically, stupendously lucky. Leonardo is here! And he'll be on display for you and your family to see beginning March 8, 2014!
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